Transcripts From Location: Israel

Q: I want to ask something about sexuality. You talked about ‘need and want’ and it is a bit confusing. I’m in a relationship, and I don’t know if I have want, but I feel for it more than my partner. He seems not to naturally like it. In the beginning I was pushing it to happen and then it happened when I’m pushing it, but not all the time. I feel it in my body, the wanting.

John: You’re a little bit upside down in the sense that your sexuality belongs to your self, to what you want and need, whereas the truth of your sexuality is that it doesn’t belong to your self…

Q: I spend most of my days doing things I enjoy, but I’ve noticed since I’ve moved to New York, my stress levels are increasing and I feel very much caught up by life. I’m wondering if there’s a way that I can continue to be active all day and remain in my being and be able to expand within the activities, as opposed to meditating or do I need to sacrifice the lifestyle I lead and take a step back and just rest?

John: You don’t necessarily need to sacrifice that lifestyle, but you do need to change what that lifestyle means to you…

Q: Lately I’ve been confused about God. Is there only one God or several Gods?

John: Despite anything that you’ve learned, despite the conditioning of your upbringing and your experiences, despite any of your reading, despite any of your perceptions, despite anything that you can seem to hold or handle in your self, despite any mind of yours, you either know or you don’t. If you know, believe what you know, adding nothing to it. If you don’t know, then don’t believe anything…

Q: I’m just beginning to realize how difficult and awful I behaved, but I remember you saying that with any self you can still live correctly. I see a possibility of living correctly; I’m not surrendering to that possibility. What can I do to follow what I know? What can I do better?

John: Identify delicacies of being, within.

Q: If I understand what you’re saying, they seem like little tiny bits of dust during the day…

Q: You told me I must bring up touches of being to my eyes and to my face and I have experienced much pain and shock and memories of behavior towards others that’s really hard for me to carry. I started to bring up the memories in order to feel and get that face back, as a sort of technique. Is that a good way to get my true face back up?

John: It helps. But when you were really little, you didn’t have these memories to draw from…